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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (1942)	1/8/2003 8:59:26 PM
From: mistermj	Respond to of 15987

U.S. Claims Pakistan Pursuit Right sltrib.com BY MARC KAUFMAN THE WASHINGTON POST BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan -- With U.S. forces coming under increasing fire along the Afghan-Pakistani border, a military spokesman said Friday that the United States reserves the right to pursue Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas into Pakistan. "U.S. forces acknowledge the internationally recognized boundaries of Afghanistan but may pursue attackers who attempt to escape into Pakistan to evade capture or retaliation," Maj. Stephen Clutter said at Bagram Air Base, which serves as headquarters for U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. His comment, made by e-mail to Reuters news service, articulated a policy that had not been publicly described before and sometimes has been vigorously denied. Clutter said the U.S. military has had the right to cross into Pakistan for some time and that "this is done with the express consent of the Pakistani government." But Pakistani leaders Friday said there was no agreement for so-called hot pursuit and said they would object to uniformed U.S. soldiers crossing into Pakistan. However, senior Pakistani security officials said that U.S. troops have been allowed to chase al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives into Pakistan since spring, as long as they don't go far into the country. The issue of cooperation with the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan is a sensitive one for Pakistan and its president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Pakistani assistance was crucial to the creation and support of the Taliban Islamic movement, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001 and provided a haven for al-Qaida. But Musharraf sided with Washington after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States, provoking anger among Pakistani militant groups that share religious and ethnic ties with the Taliban. Radical Islamic groups in Pakistan, some of which have been linked to attacks on Western and Christian targets during the past year, have denounced Musharraf for allowing U.S. forces to use some Pakistani military bases and for assisting attempts to capture Taliban and al-Qaida forces feeing Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. The dilemma facing Pakistan's leaders is most acute when dealing with the tribal areas along the Afghan border, where the population is predominantly Pashtun, the same ethnic group that gave rise to the Taliban in southern Afghanistan in the early 1990s. Historically and legally, the Pakistani government has limited control over the tribal areas, where U.S. intelligence analysts believe many al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives have regrouped. While U.S. officials stress in public that Pakistan has taken steps to control Islamic militants from al-Qaida and the Taliban, some say privately the Musharraf government could do more to combat them in the border areas but has chosen not to. "A year ago, Pakistan had the choice of either acting decisively against al-Qaida and Taliban elements or of doing the minimum," said a foreign diplomat in Kabul. "By now, it's clear they have decided not to move strongly against them." The issue has become a pressing one as U.S. soldiers more aggressively patrol the Afghan-Pakistani border, especially in the southeast region where many al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives remain active. In the most recent incident, a man dressed as a Pakistani border scout shot and wounded a U.S. soldier near the town of Shkin on Sunday. The incident sparked a firefight, which ended when U.S. forces dropped a 500-pound bomb on a former religious school where the man, and perhaps others, were hiding. U.S. officials said the bomb was dropped on Afghan soil. But the border is ill-defined, and officials acknowledged that the former school was in an area actually administered by Pakistan. © Copyright 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune.